Richmond gets $1.88 million for blight fight

City officials were beaming Thursday at the news that the city will receive $1.88 million in U.S. Treasury Department funds this year for blight elimination.

Mayor Sally Hutton said this means "we can begin to clean up a lot of neighborhoods."

"It means a lot of abandoned, dangerous properties can be removed," Hutton said. "It's just a great opportunity for the city of Richmond, and we're ready to go to work."

The money is part of Indiana's Blight Elimination Program through the Indiana Housing & Community Development Authority. It is funded by the U.S. Treasury Department.

Its goal is to decrease foreclosures, stabilize homeowner property values and strengthen neighborhoods and neighborhood safety by eliminating blight.

The plan is to identify and buy abandoned, blighted properties for demolition.

Hutton said the city will receive another $51,000 from the program to maintain properties until they are dispersed.

Tony Foster, director of the city's Metropolitan Development office, spearheaded the effort.

"Obviously, we are very thrilled," he said. "It's going to be a lot of work, but this is a very positive thing for our community."

Foster said it will be four or five months before any demolition begin.

"We can't wait to get started," he said.

Earlier this year, city officials put the word out through the Metropolitan Development office, with help from various neighborhood leaders, that they hoped to acquire about 40 properties.

More than double that number of property owners showed interest and, as a result, the city now will acquire and demolish 82 abandoned and blighted structures. Properties will be purchased for their appraised value.

The city will partner with the Neighborhood Services Clearinghouse, which would be the actual owner of the properties. Loan fund dollars would be used to demolish blighted properties, and the land then would be sold or offered to adjacent property owners.

"I would expect that in most cases we would give the land to adjacent property owners," said city building commissioner Bruce Oesterling. "We're not in this to make money. We're in this to clean up the neighborhoods."

"We expect that more than 80 percent of these will be divided between adjacent property owners," Foster said.

Or officials could give the land to non-profit agencies, such as Habitat for Humanity, for future development.

"This is an incredibly flexible program that is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help us clean up the community," Foster said. "The focus is on vacant, abandoned, blighted, burned-out properties."

The city is targeting properties in the Fairview, Baxter, Old Richmond, Vaile, Elizabeth Starr, Starr Parkside and North Richmond neighborhoods, areas that lead the city in foreclosures and the number of abandoned homes.

In May, city officials also acquired 17 properties in a county deed sale that they used in the application process.

Hutton said Foster, Oesterling, development specialist Sharon Palmer and city planner Sarah Mitchell are the true heroes in landing the forgivable loan. Diane Whitehead, community policing coordinator, organized a group of neighborhood leaders who walked door to door identifying abandoned properties.

"They deserve a big round of applause. They went above and beyond, once again. They don't know what a 40-hour work week is," she said. "It shows what can happen when we work together.

"I can tell all the naysayers out there that this program will make a community look better," Hutton said.